STATE HOUSE ROUNDUP -- A week that was far from ordinary

Monday

Dec 11, 2017 at 10:31 AMDec 11, 2017 at 11:50 AM

A recap and analysis of the week in state government.

There's no vacancy in the Senate presidency, but there is a vacuum.

That's in no way meant to disrespect Harriette Chandler of Worcester, an eminently substantial and respectable choice to serve as acting president, whose selection constituted the opening act of an unparalleled weeklong drama on Beacon Hill.

But her very designation as acting, and her declaration that she definitely will not be the next Senate president, leaves the New Not Normal in the Senate as a series of unanswered questions. The biggest one is "Who will take possession of the president's chair when Chandler leaves it?" Like nature, politics abhors a vacuum, and the irresistible attraction of the presidential podium is already drawing candidates.

Nominally, Stan Rosenberg will return to that podium should the investigation ordered by the Senate Ethics Committee Dec. 4 find he violated no dictates of the Senate rules, even if the reputed behavior of his husband was reprehensible, or criminal.

But political rules are more-severe and less-explicit than the Senate's, and they state that if a leader makes his followers look bad, they are going to want a new leader. The same unwritten code says that that goes double in an election year, which is when the investigation and its aftermath will unfold.

The wretched best case for Rosenberg is that the investigation ordered by Ethics finds that even if his husband Bryon Hefner did molest, assault or intimidate four men with business before the Senate, as Yvonne Abraham's column in the Boston Globe asserted, Rosenberg did not not know any of it was going on.

Even granting that, did he also not know Hefner was also meddling in routine Senate business, as the victims in Abraham's piece further assert? In that case -- if Abraham's reporting is on-target -- the firewall Rosenberg promised to erect between Hefner and official business utterly failed, and it's hard to imagine how he will convince the body a new one will stand if he stays married.

The questions, uncomfortable and fascinating, will go on for at least a year. For now, let's recap the week -- and what a short, strange trip it's been.

Rosenberg began the week still in the president's chair, but having recused himself from any investigation into the Hefner scandal. But following a familiar pattern (think Bernard Law or Al Franken), it became clear he needed to descend at least some of the dreary steps that usually lead to professional oblivion. The next step down for him was stepping aside as president as the investigation was conducted. He took that step Dec. 4, relinquishing his physical office and his stipend.

A caucus had already been planned, and by the time senators (Democrats to start with, later Republicans) arrived, several names were already in the mix -- Chandler, Linda Dorcena-Forry of Dorchester, Eileen Donoghue of Lowell, Ways and Means Chair Karen Spilka and Sal Salvatore DiDomenico of Everett. Marc Pacheco and Mark Montigny also were on the list by dint of their status as long-serving senators.

The view of the caucus was obscured by the frosted glass of Room 428, and from all accounts, the situation inside wasn't much clearer. Legislators are notoriously poor managers in general, and asking them 31 of them to perform instant crisis management collectively was asking a lot.

They did remarkably well, considering, avoiding an insane and premature brawl for succession, and instead spent nine hours discussing the rules of the situation, their options and the individual choices for acting president, then made their pick.

With an enormous media contingent hovering so they could breathlessly tweet the arrival of pizza -- which constituted all the news that could be gleaned in the nine hours -- senators were walked to and from the restroom like denizens of Bright Horizons, in a procedure apparently meant to secure the integrity of the process, but that really just served as snicker inducement.

Their efforts will go on independent of what the Senate investigation finds, and that's one of the reasons Rosenberg will be so damaged even if he's cleared by the Ethics Committee's investigator.

Chandler and Minority Leader Bruce Tarr held a press conference at about 7:30 p.m. to announce Chandler would serve as president, and Chandler assured the public and media she was resolved to keep the playing field level by stepping aside as soon as the investigation into Rosenberg was complete.

"We as a caucus and as a body will work swiftly toward a return to regular order. I promise you that," Chandler told the Senate and the state.

The order adopted by the Senate after the caucus stipulates the Ethics Committee will investigate only Rosenberg's behavior -- whether he violated the rules of the Senate (Rules 10, 10A and 12A seem the most germane).

At about the time the caucus was convening, Attorney General Maura Healey and Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley suddenly encouraged all parties affected by the Hefner affair to come forward to assist in bringing him to justice if his behavior was in fact criminal. Like everyone who spoke on the matter, they said confidentiality, safety and sensitivity to the needs of the witnesses and victims is their first concern, followed by a just conclusion.

The Ethics Committee gathered in Room 428 the morning of Dec. 5. But who was this unexpected new face? In the chair where Sen. Salvatore DiDomenico of Everett should have been, there sat newly elected Sen. Cindy Friedman of Arlington. DiDomenico recused himself from the matter, the News Service later determined, saying he was concerned about perceptions of a possible conflict, since he had been mentioned as a candidate for acting president. But the decision gave him a dash of first-mover advantage in the positioning for succession, which requires delicacy and derring-do in equal measure.

The committee quickly ordered the hiring of an independent investigator to file a report on the affair, so the committee can recommend a course of action on Rosenberg's fate to the full body. That investigator is reportedly likely to be from out-of-state to inculcate trust both in and out of the building. Sen. Michael Rodrigues, chair of Ethics, said the report would be made public -- or at least that that was "the intention" of the committee.

The tenuousness of Rosenberg's position could be measured in the swiftness with which would-be successors went public.

By the time the Senate did return to regular order, wrapping up the extraordinary Dec. 4 formal session with what felt like a routine Dec. 7 informal, three women, including Rosenberg's Ways and Means chair, had declared they would like to succeed him. They did not say when.

Donoghue, Dorcena Forry and Spilka all issued statements, a totally unprecedented development, and along with DiDomenico will presumably commence forthwith privately seeking to secure the votes needed to become president. When that vote occurs will go a long way toward dictating the output of the 2017-2018 legislative session. It's far from clear if Rosenberg will be in the mix, and far from certain that everyone else will drop out if he's a candidate, which could mean that even the folks in minority corner -- the Senate Republicans -- could play a role. Gov. Charlie Baker's favored candidate, Dean Tran of Fitchburg, will be joining them soon after he pulled off a rare feat Dec. 5, flipping a north central Massachusetts seat that had been held by Democrat Jen Flanagan. Watch out for attempts by president candidates to form alliances, which could dictate the outcome in a multiperson field.

The Dec. 7 session featured nothing more extraordinary than renditions of "Good King Wenceslas" and other holiday faves by the choir from Whitinsville Christian School (they were terrific). Later that day, Rosenberg took part of the afternoon to talk to a political science class at UMass, and a moment to talk to Stephanie Murray of the News Service. He avoided any detailed discussion of the scandal, but was willing to say, "I hope my name will be cleared and I don't want to say anything more beyond that." Then he walked off to face an uncertain future via a solitary stroll along the beautiful Campus Pond of his alma mater.

Eventually, senators will go back to the business of running the state, whomever is dispensing offices and committee chairs and mixing it up with the House, where there's some level of apprehension about the entire State House, not just the Senate, becoming viewed as scandalized by a portion of the electorate.

In that vein, the indictment Dec. 8 of former state Sen. Brian Joyce on federal corruption charges just added to the eagerness to be clear of the Hefner mess, quickly and completely, though that's not possible. Joyce is in extremely deep trouble, facing a 113-count indictment including charges of racketeering, extortion and money laundering. The feds intend to prove he turned his Senate office into a "criminal enterprise," as acting U.S. Attorney William Weinreb put it. It does not help Rosenberg's standing that Joyce was one of his closest supporters, nor that he kept a place as chair of the Senate's special commission to improve public performance even as corruption accusations swirled around him in his final term. Joyce pleaded not guilty.

The Joyce news enabled the MassGOP to take a stab at writing their own Roundup lede, which they issued the afternoon of Dec. 8 -- "Senate Democrats' embattled leader stepped aside on Monday, they lost a seat in a special election on Tuesday, and a corrupt former colleague was indicted today. There's no way around it: this week couldn't have been any worse for Massachusetts Senate Democrats."

In keeping with the week's theme of unrelenting pain, Auditor Suzanne Bump released the findings of an investigation of MassHealth data showing the Department of Children and Families missed 260 cases of serious physical injury to the children in its care. The cases are from 2014 and 2015 and the Baker administration has instituted structural and management changes.

"Although indeed past actions have addressed some problems that had been previously identified, there are still issues that we have uncovered that need to be addressed," Bump told reporters Dec. 7. "It shows that the agency's reforms really still are a work in progress." In general, Bump said, government has been slow to build the benefits of data analysis into its operations.

On the fiscal front, the next-biggest news of the week may have been the annual convening of economists to help budget writers set a revenue estimate for use in the fiscal 2019 state budget. The predictions ran in the order of 3.5 percent growth, conservative compared to November actual figures, which brought tax revenues this fiscal year to 4.8 percent above comparable levels a year ago.

The estimate is only a guideline, but it drives the drafting of the biggest bill of the year in every way -- the budget, which is difficult to craft in ideal conditions, and will be exponentially more challenging if federal tax reform modifies the behavior of taxpayers from Raytheon to Ray's Auto Parts (in Sheffield).

The complexity of revenue dynamics is normally the trickiest element of Beacon Hill life to track and predict. But as of this week, it has nothing on trying to predict the future of the Senate.